Pop singer Peng’s unconventional road to music
Not many people get to live out their dream, let alone two, but that is exactly what the former Canadian Olympic gymnast is doing now
The actress, artist, and creator has had a full and eventful career so far.
Jason Rivera
Words by Samantha Pak
For many lifelong athletes, it can be hard to know what to do once you retire from your sport. But for pop singer Peng, transitioning from elite gymnastics to music was a no-brainer.
Because when she wasn’t at the gym—whether she was out with an injury, or had a day off from training—the former Canadian National Team member and 2012 Olympian was busy taking various music lessons, attending acting classes and going to theater camps. Even leading up to the London Olympics, she was still taking singing and guitar lessons.
“I always had this musical side in me,” Peng says.
And now the 31-year-old Chinese Canadian is finally getting to show off that side of her. Peng recently made her musical debut with her first single, “Pretty Please.” The music video dropped in July and has already received a number of awards, including best music video and best original song at the Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles, and best music video and best first-time director from the Oniros Film Awards in New York.
“I was really proud of the music video that we had made with my former teammate, actually,” she says, referring to Vanessa Zamarripa, who competed alongside Peng at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “She directed it, and then she just brought in ‘the Avengers’—everyone she knew in the industry, and they were so helpful. Because again, it was my first time. It's not like we had a budget with a label and all that stuff, and so everyone was really nice in the industry.”
Peng’s second single, “Money on Me,” is set to drop on Nov. 1.
Her first dream
Peng’s way into music may seem unconventional—going from athletics, to a more creative and artistic career—but to her, it makes sense.
Peng has dreamed of singing since she was a child.
Still frame from the "Pretty Please" music video
She’s been writing songs since high school, inspired by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, both of whom play guitar, which inspired her to pick up the instrument. She also entered into singing competitions, including one called Asian Idol, in Toronto, where she was born and raised—which she admits with a laugh didn’t go very well, but she did get past the first round. “I've always wanted to do acting, and always wanted to do music,” she tells me. “And it's funny because now that I'm in the space, I've realized that music and acting were actually my first dream before gymnastics.”
As a young girl, her mother caught her singing and acting all the time. But her parents instilled in her the need for a stable job. So the plan after college and gymnastics was to find said stable job and do music and acting on the side.
So while her new career path may not have been that shocking to those close to her, Peng, now based in Los Angeles, admits some people may have been shocked by how serious she was about pursuing music. She received a lot of judgment and there were those who told her it was going to be difficult. “That was a big hump to get over, post gymnastics, because that's when a lot of self doubt came in,” Peng says. “But this is my life. I might as well make it the most that I want to.”
A platform to showcase yourself
@pengpengclee Haters will say this is fake 🤸🏻♂️ wait till the end 😜 #flowers #mileycyrus #flowerscover #singingchallenge ♬ original sound - PENG
Peng really started pursuing music and acting seriously after graduating from UCLA in 2018 and retiring from gymnastics at the age of 24.
But that doesn’t mean things happened for her right away. It was a very slow start. She took acting classes and got a vocal coach. Her gymnastics coach connected her with a manager, who helped her get auditions, but not much was happening. And like for almost all of us, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, things pretty much came to a grinding halt for Peng.
With no idea how to break into the music industry, she turned to social media.
“I just didn't know how to show everyone that I was more than just a gymnast,” Peng says. “And so I ended up getting on TikTok just for myself, and didn't tell anyone about it.”
At the time, she was still having a hard time breaking out of the athletic image people had of her, so she started singing and doing other fun things on the platform. From there, her audience grew (she now has 5.5 million followers), and she was able to connect with producers. “Social media is, honestly, a free platform for you to showcase yourself,” she says.
Peng took this advice, which she received in college, to heart and utilized various social media platforms to show the world what she could do. This was quite the contrast from her days as an NCAA athlete, where she says a lot of things are handed to you and people are more than willing to go out of their way to help you. But once you’re in the real world, you have to learn how to make things happen for yourself—especially once you retire from your sport, because that is not a gradual change. It’s very sudden.
Like many Asians in the entertainment industry, Peng got her start on social media.
Still frame from the "Pretty Please" music video
An untraditional—but not uncommon—route for Asian entertainers
When I note that social media wasn’t as prevalent, even as recently as 10 years ago, as it is now, Peng acknowledges the role it has had in her career, saying she would definitely be having a harder time breaking into entertainment if it weren’t for TikTok or Instagram. “I honestly have no idea where I would be without it, because now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I would be in marketing, trying to still do acting and music,” she says, adding that she’s grateful for it and very appreciative of the fans who have followed her and supported her all this time—some of whom didn’t even know she was a gymnast.
Peng has taken an untraditional route into entertainment, but utilizing the Internet and social media has not been an uncommon way for Asian Americans (or in her case, Asian Canadians) to break into the industry. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, creators like Wong Fu Productions, Michelle Phan, Ryan Higa, and KevJumba blew up on YouTube, providing our community with representation we weren’t exactly seeing on TV or in the movies. I ask Peng how these creators have helped her as an Asian person in entertainment, and she admits she never thought about it until I brought it up. But after musing upon it for a moment, she says, “I wonder if I thought I had a little more of an opportunity for success on social media than acting, at first, because there were way more Asian presences on social media than on TV.”
Like the rest of us, Peng didn’t grow up seeing many Asian actors on screen beyond Jackie Chan, or characters with accents, playing stereotypical roles. The first person she remembers seeing break stereotypes was Brenda Song’s London Tipton on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. But still, that was only one person. So while Peng always wanted to act, it just didn’t seem possible. “I always wanted to be white. I always wanted white features, because that's all I saw,” she says. “And then on social media, I saw Michelle Phan. I saw all these other things. I think maybe that's why I thought social media would break me out in entertainment, because I just never saw those people that looked like me on TV…Definitely, the Asian community has had a better chance on social media, at the beginning, than I think on TV.”
Back to her roots
Right now, Peng is currently on tour. But not for music. She’s stepped back into the gymnastics world and has been traveling across the country as part of the Gold Over America Tour—also known as Simone Biles’ GOAT tour—which runs through Nov. 3.
Even though she's a successful singer, Peng still makes time for gymnastics.
Still frame from the "Pretty Please" music video
The show features male and female gymnasts, mostly from the United States, but there are a few athletes from other countries including Canada, France and the Netherlands. Peng has been hosting the show alongside fellow UCLA alum, Katelyn Ohashi (of viral floor routine fame). When she was first asked to join the tour, Peng was already six years removed from her time in the sport and told them her body really couldn’t do that kind of gymnastics anymore.
As co-hosts, Peng and Ohashi talk to the crowd, interview some of the athletes at the beginning of the show and during the show Peng participates in some of the dance routines. “I'm having a great time. I was nervous coming into it, just because I hadn't been around the gymnastics community in a long time,” she says. “I didn't really know a whole lot of people and was just nervous because I'm also not doing gymnastics, so I couldn't really figure out my role.”
But she was also excited to join the tour because she’s spent so much time at home, filming content, auditioning, or working on her music. So now she’s been able to share everything she’s been working on with others. And in the scary, post-gymnastics world, it’s been nice to share that experience with others who are going through similar experiences.
The tour has helped Peng rediscover her roots in gymnastics and her love for the sport. She says her time away has also helped her learn to appreciate the gymnastics community, rather than run away from it. “It's like creating a new family. Everyone is very accepting, and also, they're just a fun group of people,” she says.
The community also loves her. Peng says many of the younger gymnasts—who wouldn’t know her from her elite or UCLA days—actually knew her from when she was a special guest on the Netflix show, My Perfect Landing. “So it's, it's cool, because it's kind of like my two worlds colliding,” she says. “It's kind of all tying in right now. So it's really cool to see. And it's so awesome to be able to perform in front of an audience and be involved with all these amazing athletes.”
Published on October 17, 2024
Words by Samantha Pak
Samantha Pak (she/her) is an award-winning Cambodian American journalist from the Seattle area and co-editor in chief for JoySauce. She spends more time than she’ll admit shopping for books than actually reading them, and has made it her mission to show others how amazing Southeast Asian people are. Follow her on Twitter at @iam_sammi and on Instagram at @sammi.pak.